The deed has been done. After getting my credit card all in order this afternoon I made the ’switch’. So now I guess its the waiting game. I wonder if apple processes orders on the weekends… Anyone know? So far my experience with Apple has been great. Who would of thought? Most transactions in online stores go smoothly and so far this is no exception. I can’t wait till that friendly man in brown comes a knockin on my door to deliver my new baby. If by chance he decides to have his way with my new Core 2 Duo machine he’s going to be faced with one angry mofo!
In the mean time I’m going to start building a list of cool programs to load on the machine as soon as it shows up on my front steps and possibly some mods…
So far my list only includes.
- iSpazz
- FanControl
- Apple logo color replacement (similar to this mod for the G4)
If anyone has any recommendations I’d like to check them out and possibly add them to the list.
EDIT: Yesterday I talked about finding some programs well suited for ’switchers’. I was pointed to a great resource that has a huge list of great software for OS X and found another on my own.
List SOFTWARE & Freeware GUIDES for MAC (translated from Italian to English)
Flërnk: A Guide to OS X Software for Switchers
My Computer My Programs
Apps that make switching easy and worth it!
Both sites are a great place to begin a quest for good OX software. I still have plenty of time to keep researching till my MacBook Pro arrives.
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fan control messed up my girlfriends mac
I’m sorry it’s in Italian but it is a quite complete list :)
Thats a bummer. I was also thinking about checking out smcFanControl as well. (http://81.169.182.62/~eidac/software/page5/page5.html) Some people said that Fan Control was better. What happened to her computer?
ah, yes here’s the link http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?t=1004690 :P
Wow Tommaso thats a HUGE list.
No worries about the Italian, I used Google to translate it for me :)
url in english:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?t=1004690
I’d go easy on adding a lot of software just yet. Here’s an interesting recent article for switchers you might care to look at, and that’s one of the pieces of advice the guy gives:
“What’s most important at this stage is getting used to the new computer ‘as is’: don’t add a lot of new software onto it; don’t assume you need anything else (for mostly likely you do not). Get used to using that computer as it came out of the box for now.”
http://www.rixstep.com/2/20070102,00.shtml
I’ll add that you should be particularly wary of any software that interferes with system frameworks and somewhat wary of any software that uses an installer.
Most software on OS X is installed simply by drag-and-drop. You see an icon but what you actually have there is an application bundle - the support files the program needs are packaged with it.
Best practice is to run as a non-admin user for day-to-day use. Inside your Home area you can make a new Applications directory -
this will be;
~/Applications
as opposed to:
/Applications
OS X is expecting that and will automatically give the folder the “applications” icon in the GUI. Leave the main applications directory for the pre-installed apps - and anything that uses an installer and really _insists_ on putting itself in there. (Palm desktop would be an example.) User installed apps should go in your own user applications directory in your Home area (they’ll have the right ownership and permissions set for that location, anyway). That’s a standard old Unix practice - and a good one. More on such things from two ex-Apple technicians:
http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/security/basic_mac_os_x_security
What you might want extra now, or later, really depends on your particular needs/interests.
For example, if you like RSS, you may find that Safari’s built-in RSS capabilities don’t go far enough for you. In that case, I’d look at NetNewsWire or its free version NetNewsWire lite.
http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire
Then again, if you write very long documents in word-processing programs, Mellel might be worth a look. It can turn out near layout-standard documents and handle documents of a length that would dismay Microsoft word.
http://www.redlers.com/mellel.html
If you’re after a text editor, you might want to try TextMate.
http://macromates.com/
Depends what you’re into.
Thanks peter,
I’ve heard that TextMate is pretty awesome! I didn’t know that all you had to do to install apps in OS X was to drag and drop. I guess I have a whole lot of learning to do when my machine arrives. :)
One of my favorite apps is Overflow launcher.
Is this the program that you are referring to?
Being controlled by the keyboard is pretty cool. Does this basically help prevent your dock from getting cluttered?
Here’s another list of ‘must have’ os x apps/utilities.
Forgot the link…
http://blog.circlesixdesign.com/2007/01/18/c6-on-utils/
they just posted another list
http://blog.circlesixdesign.com/2007/01/20/c6-internet-apps/
Two more links full of software!
http://www.jason-preston.com/index.php/2007/01/20/10-essential-apps-for-the-new-mac-user/
http://stufffromkevin.blogspot.com/2007/01/essential-free-software-for-mac.html
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